The government need to take urgent measures to push consumerism in order to translate the vision of $5 trillion economy into reality, stated Super Plastronics Director and CEO, Avneet Singh Marwah in the course of an exclusive interview with TheSpuzz Online. Citing how India had the highest nearby tax on tv, Marwah stated he was hopeful the upcoming Union price range 2021 would bring an updated tax structure to encourage positive sentiment amongst purchasers.
“Whenever the taxes are high, there is always some foul play. The government has lost more than $2 billion because of instances of mis-declaration in the last three years alone. The informal economy grows when taxes are high,” Marwah stated, adding “we need to update the tax structure.”
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At present, televisions up to 32-inches have 18 per cent GST price even though these above 32-inches are taxed at 28 per cent.
“We urge the government that it should be (reduced to) 18 per cent at least for TVs up to 40-inches,” Marwah stated.
The government had place imports of many forms of colour tv sets, which includes LCDs, below a restricted category from free of charge final year, to cut down India’s reliance on imports, particularly from China. In the later element of the year, the government had re-imposed 5 per cent customs duty on open-cell panels to additional enhance domestic manufacturing–this was zero among September 2019 and 2020.
While the former move has been largely appreciated by nearby brands which includes Super Plastronics, the latter has noticed mixed response, even more so in the wake of the ongoing pandemic predicament.
“We urge the government to take back the 5 per cent duty on open cell TV panel imports as price of raw material has shot up in the wake of the pandemic,” Marwah stated highlighting how “panel pricing alone has increased by up to 170 per cent lately.”
There are other approaches the government could–and possibly should–promote domestic manufacturing in the tv space, according to Marwah. One of them, is by way of the introduction of a PLI-scheme for LED TVs.
“The PLI scheme should be expanded to include LED TVs (even LED lights have been included in the current scheme).”
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Regardless of all the expectations, there is an air of positivity in the household-grown wise Television market today. And lots of positive momentum. Though, according to Marwah, “everything depends on the political stability. All the entrepreneurs and industries need to feel secure while they are investing in India. We will be putting 200 crore investment in our next two plants in India. But if the political landscape changes in India and again, the Chinese lobbying comes back and imports start, the whole investment will be of no use and there will be struggle the market.”
Super Plastronics is the official brand licensee of Kodak and Thomson TVs in India.